The Five Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of 2017

The Washington Post included NC State professor John Kessel’s latest novel — The Moon and the Other — among its top five science fiction picks for 2017. Barnes and Noble also included the book in its top 25 picks for science fiction and fantasy.

Set in the 22nd century, this charming, sexy novel follows a man and a woman in two opposing cities on the moon. In the Society of Cousins, men give up the right to vote in exchange for an elevated and pampered status where they show off their skills as artists, athletes and lovers. The Society’s rival, Persepolis, is a city with patriarchal power structures more reflective of our own. The Society is deemed a threat by the patriarchal cities around it, and a committee is created to investigate the status of men — and potentially reveal secret weaponry created by a female scientist. Kessel has written a book about ideologies taken to extremes but also about how a person of character — a hero — is created.